


The Archaeology Aperçu

by QueenyMidas



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Archaeology, Azeroth, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Multi, Other, World of Warcraft - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-12 00:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenyMidas/pseuds/QueenyMidas
Summary: A story for each archaeology find in World of Warcraft in varying tenses and styles. Original characters and lore characters. For Azeroth!Aperçu: plural aperçus play  \ˌa-pər-ˈsüz, ä-per-ˈsᵫz\1 : a brief survey or sketch : outline2 : an immediate impression; especially : insight





	The Archaeology Aperçu

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing an original novel of my own but find my original work comes easier when I take breaks for fanfiction, so here it is. I have always loved archaeology to pieces (har har) in World of Warcraft, and do it as often as I can while thinking about the artifacts I find and what story might be behind them and how they got there.  
> This is, like the only writing worth reading is, purely self-indulgent.

Title: Anklet with Golden Bells

In-Game Description: Draenei. This slim loop of purple metal is adorned with seventeen tiny bells and larger yellow beads of blown glass. It might have been worn by a dancer or a young socialite.

 

              Valclav’s bags are far lighter on the way back from Shattrath City, but the dangers are far greater. This he knows.

              The roads leading out of the Lower City of Shattrath are at times but a continuation of the Lower City itself. The unfortunate spill out of the city walls and into camps around the gates, eyes vacant and hands outstretched. There is no telling what such desperate wretches might do to escape such poverty. Valclav knows this too well, and considers the huddled masses as dangerous as a swarm of Hydra.

              Valclav lowers his hood over his tentacles and clutches the bags strapped to his back tightly, even the bags that are mostly empty space and vials now. He keeps his head down, his eyes on his own feet to make sure not to disturb the ramshackle dwellings.

              He weaves between tents, ignores the crying of draenei children swaddled in crumbling scraps of netherweave cloth. His Videla had not cried so wildly, but his Videla had not hungered as these babes did. Still, for this Valclav considers his child superior.

              The last of the squalor and squabbling soon fades away to a whining in the distance, a buzz of the past. All Valclav must think of now is the road in front of him.

              Ahead Valclav knows the warpstalkers prowl, cloaked in a milky sheen that can only truly be spotted in the right light. Since the massive trees of the Terrokar Forest do not allow light to so much as reach the ground save in sparse patches, Valclav’s old eyes must work double-time.

              One hand on the hilt of his sword now, Valclav checks behind each tree he passes as he picks up speed, searching for a shimmer. He is almost out of the thicket when the shimmer finds him.

              Valclav hears the warpstalker before he feels it bear down on his back, a chitter seeping out from pointed teeth that move to tear at the leather straps of his bag. Valclav cries out, falling flat against road. He digs his nails into the ground, cracking and splintering them as he tries to pull away.

              The warpstalker’s claws have sunken deep into his bags but not into him. There is another option, to abandon the load and flee. In his terror Valclav has only moments to consider it before deciding against it entirely.

              After coming so far, making each painstaking sale—the blood elf that had taken what felt like years judging ‘olfactory potency’—Valclav narrows his eyes. Valclav will not lose his progress.

              “Hah!” he roars, throwing all his weight forward at once. The warpstalker screeches, wrenching back its claws to strike again. In the moments it releases Valclav he scrambles to stand, hooves slipping out from underneath him as he makes a break for the clearing ahead.

              The warpstalker is not shaken so easily. It bounds after him, four legs working in perfect symmetry to catch up in no time at all.

              The beast swipes at Valclav’s feet this time, catching the edge of his cloak and yanking hard. It rips off a piece of the family heirloom with no problem at all—allowing its prey to run free. It bows to sniff the cloth to check if any meat is attached and when it is found wanting, it lets out a horrid cry that threatens to tear Valclav’s eardrums apart from afar.

              Still convinced the creature is behind him he runs, and runs, and runs until he sees the first caps of the blue mushrooms on the horizon. _Almost home_.

              Only when Valclav places an open palm on the stalk of a mushroom around his height does he look behind him. Huffing and puffing from the run he notices his legs are shaking, tendons clenching at random. They must not fail him now. To the East a maddening drum beat begins in the hills, the haunting moan of a horn, the sign of an orc warparty to come.

              Before Valclav can even begin to worry about this he must inspect the bags. The warpstalker had slashed it—had the contents been lost in his flight?

              He practically tore the bag off of his body to look. The biggest tear was to the central pocket as he’d feared. Valclav plunges at hand in, feeling around frantically until— _ah_. There it is.

              Hand shaking slightly, Valclav produces the anklet from its pocket and runs his fingers across the smooth purple metal. He gives it a shake and the bells tinkle, the glass gems shine in the swamplight. Yes, this will make Videla smile.

              His little dancer, the girl who wanted to be just like the lady in the Telredor fountain when she grew up—pretty and most of all, _important_.

              To peddle his potions in Shattrath and peruse the shops for rarities that might make Videla happy, this is what he does for her. Valclav will do this again for her, and again, and one day it will kill him. This, he knows.


End file.
